Iraqi lawmakers press government for refugee aid

Matthew Hay Brown, for the Pulitzer Center
Washington, DC

Iraqi lawmakers are seeking $4 billion in next year's national budget to assist the more than 4 million Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons.

"Those people are Iraqis like any others and both the parliament and the government have commitments according to the constitution and international accords to protect and help them," Abdul-Khaliq Zankana, the head of the Iraqi parliament's committee on displacement and migration, told the U.N.-based humanitarian information service IRIN last week.

But if experience is any guide, the unprecented level of aid – it would dwarf all international assistance directed toward the displacement crisis to date – appears unlikely to meet approval.

"We asked the government last year to allocate 3 to 5 percent of the oil revenues in the 2008 budget to cover the needs of IDPs and refugees as they represent a big segment of the Iraqi people and are going through harsh conditions," Zankana said. "But unfortunately this call was ignored.

"A few months ago, we appealed for $2 billion to be allotted in the $21 billion complementary budget to the 2008 budget for the same purpose, but the government only allotted about $200 million."

Iraqi officials have said that they are focused on bringing refugees home, not making their lives abroad more comfortable.